Job Adjustments in March 2015 Update

[FrankReynolds]

>BRD can sleep entire rooms full of mobs instantly, has the ability to buff party haste attack defense, and to impair enemy attacks etc., party movement speed up, and many other useful support role functions.

BRD will never be doing those things and dealing damage. The two roles are mutually exclusive and therefore irrelevant to the discussion.

>DNC can cure for 1000hp+ without using mp

This takes away their means of doing damage and renders them a support role. No one ever invites them to do this. Irrelevant to the conversation.

or risking interrupt

Unless they are paralyzed, amnesiaed, stunned, etc. Things which happen quite frequently on the front line and rarely on the back. But again, they will have Saber dance up if they are there to DD. If they don't, their damage will fall behind other DDS.

and without the danger of a mage job taking hate,

But with the danger of taking hate and / or dieing themselves. ALso just to make sure that you got it... they will have Saber dance up if they are there to DD. If they don't, their damage will fall behind other DDS.

has high evasion,

Nothing can be evasion tanked any more. Try again.

mob debuffs,

Again, eats into DD abilities while buffing other DDS and still doesn't warrant an invite.

dualwield,

Because they need it. They can't wield a GK.

party movement speed up,

Who cares?

party haste, etc.

Haste will be capped by support jobs rendering this useless. Try again.

>THF can obtain multi-million gil drops from mobs,

So can any other job.

pick locks, can steal enemy items/bonuses,

HAH HAH HAH! good one.

can steal enemy SP (including Manafont-Meteor),

Yes, that been so game changing... This is so funny. You are seriously killing me.

can flee,

I don't think that has been part of any strategy in like 5 years. Even then the strategy was flee and go die somewhere. You should do stand up.

blah blah blah...

>WAR can hit mobs and damage them and provoke and retaliation and massive double attack and massive critical hits and use any damage type and make any skill chain and rock massive defense and a bunch of other stuff.... Thats all.

So there's your apples and oranges right there. Bon appetit. If you still think its fair that those support role jobs have all those bonuses AND have a dagger WS that just pumps out 15k+ damage like its no big deal, while WAR has zero of those useful support abilities and has gaxe skills that hover around 8k a lot of the time, then obviously we have different understandings of game balance.

You do have a different understanding. See, I think that being able to shoot rainbows out of your behind doesn't matter at all if the only thing people want is a DD and you aren't it. None of that stuff you listed about these jobs matters in the least which is why no one was bringing them to events until they started doing better damage. And all the comparisons in the world won't change that fact. Support roles are already taken by bard, whm, rdm, geo and cor. No one wants a support thf or dnc and no one wants a DD bard.

Re; upheaval, I use it because it is consistent, Ukkos tends to veer around too much, also I think Upheaval is a cool WS and I never had any problems with it until my THF started spamming 10k+ while naked and facing the mob.

Yeah, and my level one war does 1,000,000 damage per hit while weakened.

Re; white damage, if you look at damage per round rather than per hit, WAR greataxe isn't really more than a THF with dual-wield plus triple-attack plus critical hit gear, or DNC/war with dualwield and critical hit gear, you are getting a similar amount to my WAR with its slow greataxe attacks. Also factor in high-evasion mobs, those are unforgiving for heavy weapons, if we miss we wait for ages to attack again, but with triple-attack dualwield daggers, if you miss you are hitting again before you even notice.

Sounds nice, but that's not how that works. a 50% hit rate is a 50% hit rate regardless of how fast you swing.

I never said I hate THF/BRD/DNC, I have played all those jobs for years, and I farmed Rudras on WOE dagger in 2011, long before the free login items/ lower NM respawn/#ofcoins requirement reductions, and back then we didn't have ilvl so the WOE mobs were just killing me all day long as I farmed the 300~ items.

So if anything I am a long term Rudra's user, dating back four years. I was just making a friendly comment, saying it doesnt seem right that this WS outperforms my Greataxe so consistently, on jobs that have access to powerful cures, horde lullaby, TH etc. and then ontop of all that these support jobs get a WS that is more powerful than a straight DD gets, when that DD job has no other abilities at all except doing damage.

Where were you 10 years ago when sneak attack -> viper bite was all the rage? Why weren't you screaming for nerfs then?

[Ulth]

I'm not going to talk about brd and dnc, because no one cares about brd's damage, and even if rudra's is nerfed into the ground dnc is still going to be doing better numbers than war and drk with Pyrrhic Kleos.

But you are really grasping at straws if you think placebo hunter and aura steal is enough for thf to be considered support instead of damage dealing. Warcry gives attack for the party, Bloodrage gives +20% crit rate to the party. Then there is tomahawk which lowers a mobs pdt by 25%. Ukko's Fury does slow, Full Break lowers the target's attack, defense, accuracy and evasion... Which one of these jobs were support again? Because it sounds a lot like that's what war does. Drk too what with all their enfeebling dark magic, and absorb attribute which is like aura steal only not tied to a 5 minute ja timer.

Thf is a damage dealing job. Or it originally was. One of the oldest tricks in the book was for thf, a tank, and another dd to do this. The tank would use a weaponskill. The DD would skillchain and pull hate away from the tank. Then the thf would close with a SATA off the tank for, (at the time) massive amounts of damage.

Back then getting 100 tp actually took about a minute, so everything worked out.

Then tp rates went up you could get 100 tp in half the time so thf alternated between sa and ta.

Then there was a long dark history for thf when it would just tag with th and then have to side on the side lines and be bored.

Now thf can actually contribute, and isn't the best DD, but is the best skillchain closer, as it should be.

I know that war has had some tough times too like when Ukko's got nerfed, but acro set can get +3% crit rate, and +3% crit damage on every peice, so might be something to look into.

Oh and the reason the OF is not very active is because there are other forums where people don't get banned for pointing out what is causing the fishing crash to happen. (nb4 banned for this post)

[Ramzi]

Most videogames are unrealistic and tend to give small weapons extra power to make players happy, and you won't see that in realistic / historical / purist RPG etc. Its something the mainstream has adopted to make it so people can play their favourite class and favourite weapons, and still have a kill rate that rivals heavier weapons and more proficient battlefield jobs.

My problem with Rudras is not really about backstab / critical / laceration damage / SATA etc. it is about how I take my THF out in average 119 gear, and just roll out Rudras without food, without sneak attack, without any kind of tactical play, I just hit the WS while facing the mob and it does a one-hit attack for like 17000 damage. Then I go out on my WAR, which has far better gear than my THF, my WAR has 180 jobpoints, HQ food, berserk/warcry up, stacked DA and VIT etc. and see the Upheaval four-hit attack clock at 14500 damage.

And my issue with it is that it makes the game feel broken, when a one-hit attack from a low quality knife does more than a four-hit attack from a greataxe, when I have way better gear on WAR and skirmish gaxe with the dmg+34 aug, versus my absolute basic Thf gear. And again, this is not backstab or tactics or laceration or SA, it is just me facing the mob and hitting it with rudras and it > my WAR gaxe ws.

Except that would literally never happen in end game content so why mention it at all? 17000 without stacked using average gear? No, just no. Stop lying to prove a point. My THF has good gear, and I've never done a 17k Rudra without SA or TA. It certainly isn't going to happen with average gear. Show me a screenshot of the battle log and I'll believe you but until then, I call 100% complete BS.

[Nebo]

I love it when people argue about job potential and THF needing nerfs that wouldn't know what a job's DD potential actually is if it kicked them in the groin and called their mother obscenities.

"My gimp THF spam 17K rudra to the face.....my WAR are 14k NOooooooooooooooooooooooooo" It's sad. There is a small army of players crying this nonsense.

Don't waste your breath trying to explain to them the math. SE is going to do what SE is going to do. Judging by their past responses regarding job balance considerations (solo and unbuffed situations/NOT endgame), I'd say its reasonable to assume the operating dev team making these "balance" changes isn't qualified in the least to do so. Nor do they make them based on actual numbers/tests.

Really, SE? "Skill Chain damage is unbalanced....let's add a spell that boosts SC damage even further and nerf THF WS damage into the ground!" /SElogic

THF WS damage is not the problem. In fact, we really need that WS damage to keep up with other melee. Our melee damage is not great and unstacked WS at 1000% tp are also comparatively weak.

To get big numbers, mr THF has to hold tp past 1000 (other DD's dont), position itself behind a constantly moving monster or player (other DD's dont) and wait ~35 seconds (possible more average over time due to missses and other considerations) between uses of Sa/Ta (other DD's don't).

What you get, is big numbers much less often. Higher individual WS numbers less often =/= higher total WS damage. Whereas other DD can spam WS at the haste cap. Haste does not do the same thing for THF WS damage that it does for other melee.

The ONLY situation where THF cosistently outdamages other DDs, is when they can close dark/light after holding TP, and you have to then attribute all that SC damage to the THF (which you really shouldn't becuase it requires other players for both the WS and the positioning).

SKILLCHAIN damage is what needs addressed. Not THF WS damage. This update is like putting a bandaid over a shotgun wound. Nerfing THF WS damage and making it depend on RDM for Ardor to close SC's is a mistake that will push the job back to irrelevance. You should not do this.

GG, FFXI, GG.

[Stompa]

Except that would literally never happen in end game content so why mention it at all? 17000 without stacked using average gear? No, just no. Stop lying to prove a point. My THF has good gear, and I've never done a 17k Rudra without SA or TA. It certainly isn't going to happen with average gear. Show me a screenshot of the battle log and I'll believe you but until then, I call 100% complete BS.

It was on La Theine Leige, when I was helping my friend farm empyrean items. I was there to help, because helping people is what I spend most of my FFXI time doing. Because I'm a helpful friendly player, or a "liar" and all the other cheap nasty insults that you and the other uptight hostile FFXI Forum characters call me, just for making a passing comment about my own opinion based on my actual experiences.

It was 17k with reforged af1 set, and alluvion dagger, with no augments on it. I think the atmas were probably crit and the TP was not 3000. I don't have screenshots. I don't have photos of me being born either, does that mean I don't exist?

The problem is that when you people have an agenda, in this case preserving your broken freaky wacked-out off the scale Rudras damage, and you get really hostile when anybody seems to have a different opinion. That is the problem. It is not the opinions of others that are the source of conflict, but the lengths you will go to to protect your precious Rudras from criticism.

I see Rudras do 10k+ all day long without SA, and similarly I see Upheaval do 6~9k all day. So that is what I am seeing, and then you can go and spin on it can't you.

[Kassaiemi]

It was on La Theine Leige, when I was helping my friend farm empyrean items. I was there to help, because helping people is what I spend most of my FFXI time doing. Because I'm a helpful friendly player, or a "liar" and all the other cheap nasty insults that you and the other uptight hostile FFXI Forum characters call me, just for making a passing comment about my own opinion based on my actual experiences.

It was 17k with reforged af1 set, and alluvion dagger, with no augments on it. I think the atmas were probably crit and the TP was not 3000. I don't have screenshots. I don't have photos of me being born either, does that mean I don't exist?

I don't particularly have a horse in this race beyond using DNC to farm Salvage or solo old content (and I'll probably get by just fine with spamming Pyrrhic and Evisceration if Rudra's gets fully gutted), but seriously, you're comparing Abyssea content to "endgame"? Throw out the oranges, this is comparing apples to a Ford Model T.

I mean, I can force 40k Rudra's on Megamaw Mikey with Building/Climactic flourishes and 3k TP. I also have 273 DEX, +50% crit chance, +60% crit damage (Razed Ruins, Gnarled Horn, Sanguine Scythe), and a pDIF that isn't exactly unfavorable compared to say, Tojil's 1800 defense. Nevermind the fact that the level difference calculation is much more in your favor in Abyssea than it is in Woh or on a 128 Unity NM.

So, yeah, let's nerf Rudra's because I can steamroll old content? I'm not going to deny it's a good WS, but your example is pretty bad.

Edit for overestimation (was basing my stats off my RNG, which is much better geared) and picture.


I'd also like to point out that my average hit in Abyssea is ~600 damage with this particular combination, and at 58 TP per hit, that means I have to do approximately 34000 damage with auto attacks just to get to that stacked Rudra's that takes five finishing moves and a 90 second cooldown in the form of Climactic Flourish (before you say (3000/58)*600 is less than that, I also have to spend ~4 AA worth of TP on steps).

[Ramzi]

It was on La Theine Leige, when I was helping my friend farm empyrean items. I was there to help, because helping people is what I spend most of my FFXI time doing. Because I'm a helpful friendly player, or a "liar" and all the other cheap nasty insults that you and the other uptight hostile FFXI Forum characters call me, just for making a passing comment about my own opinion based on my actual experiences.

It was 17k with reforged af1 set, and alluvion dagger, with no augments on it. I think the atmas were probably crit and the TP was not 3000. I don't have screenshots. I don't have photos of me being born either, does that mean I don't exist?

The problem is that when you people have an agenda, in this case preserving your broken freaky wacked-out off the scale Rudras damage, and you get really hostile when anybody seems to have a different opinion. That is the problem. It is not the opinions of others that are the source of conflict, but the lengths you will go to to protect your precious Rudras from criticism.

I see Rudras do 10k+ all day long without SA, and similarly I see Upheaval do 6~9k all day. So that is what I am seeing, and then you can go and spin on it can't you.

I assumed you weren't going to use Abyssea as a measuring point for how OP a WS can be ^_^; ESPECIALLY if you are using RR atma, which.... why wouldn't you be? This totally distorts the data, and it's also not end game content which I was referring to in my post. Do an unstacked Rudras for 17k on an incursion boss, or a Difficult battlefield, or basically any Adoulin NM and then you can make a case for it being broken.

LOL.... Abyssea.

Also I didn't intend to come off as hostile, but when I see people make posts like yours where they are talking about rolling over NM's and doing huge damage with no effort or gear, I look at my own results and think... well what am I doing wrong? Am I missing the secret sauce? WTF? My THF has really good gear. No R/E/M but that's about all I'm missing (oh and I'm not spending 20 mil on 2 ramuh+1 rings- I'll leave that for the suckers) but you get my point. I macro in all my Crit dmg + gear for rudras, and on a 3000TP WS I might see 10k... maybe, depending on the target defense. So when you say you do 70% more than the best I've seen, sure it will make me question it.

Now if you had said it was in Abyssea from the beginning, you wouldn't have even got a response from me. Context....

[Stompa]

No I never said I was talking about endgame, in w/e context you want to define that as. My friend said to me the other day, "the trouble with endgame, is it doesn't exist." which made me laugh. I like laughing, I'm a happy laughing cripple girl, who doesn't want all the venomous s___ that I get on this forum.

In my original post here, a short one paragraph post, with jokes and friendly happy fun stuff, I said basically I PERSONALLY have trouble understanding how a dagger would do more than a great axe, ask a lumberjack if he wants to cut down trees with a knife, etc. It was a casual fun comment, which on any other forum would be taken as such. But not here oh no.

Then I got a full page of hatred about how nobody could afford cavalry horses in history, etc. and Frank dissecting my posts into tiny contextless sections instead of replying in a Grown Up way.

And all I was saying, is I see Rudras doing more than Upheaval.

I see this in Aby, and I see this outside Aby. I see it in Dyna, and in VW etc. I see it a lot in my farming jobpoints. Rudras does do more than Upheaval, a lot. And this seems odd to me because knives are like little mosquito stingers, and my Svarga is like a bus loaded full of big people. And my point, which was just a friendly and casual observation, got all this mad hostility.

You know what, if SE made Rudra's do 500k base damage tomorrow, I would not care. Not one bit. I would still play my WAR coz she looks funny in her big helmet bashing stuff with that fat gaxe. It makes me happy to watch it. So I don't care, I only play THF under duress when my friends say "bring your THF." I will play WAR and PUP, and I don't care about Rudras nerf or if they make it even more powerful I was just saying it always seems odd to me when a dagger does more than a greataxe, and for this I got the full flame grilled trollburgers menu.

[Crevox]

I understand some people here are not so happy about Rudra's Storm getting changed, but there's really no need for hostility at all.

Can we please discuss this maturely and kindly? Stompa is one of the most positive people here; just because you might disagree with something she posts doesn't mean you need to jump down her throat. Let's try to be constructive.

[Kassaiemi]

I understand some people here are not so happy about Rudra's Storm getting changed, but there's really no need for hostility at all.

Can we please discuss this maturely and kindly? Stompa is one of the most positive people here; just because you might disagree with something she posts doesn't mean you need to jump down her throat. Let's try to be constructive.

If I come across as hostile it's not my intent, I'd rather not see DNC and THF fade back into oblivion because people are unhappy that their large numbers are smaller than some well geared DNC's large numbers. And using Abyssea as a benchmark of balance is quite silly no matter how you cut it.

No I never said I was talking about endgame, in w/e context you want to define that as. My friend said to me the other day, "the trouble with endgame, is it doesn't exist." which made me laugh. I like laughing, I'm a happy laughing cripple girl, who doesn't want all the venomous s___ that I get on this forum.

In my original post here, a short one paragraph post, with jokes and friendly happy fun stuff, I said basically I PERSONALLY have trouble understanding how a dagger would do more than a great axe, ask a lumberjack if he wants to cut down trees with a knife, etc. It was a casual fun comment, which on any other forum would be taken as such. But not here oh no.

Then I got a full page of hatred about how nobody could afford cavalry horses in history, etc. and Frank dissecting my posts into tiny contextless sections instead of replying in a Grown Up way.

And all I was saying, is I see Rudras doing more than Upheaval.

I see this in Aby, and I see this outside Aby. I see it in Dyna, and in VW etc. I see it a lot in my farming jobpoints. Rudras does do more than Upheaval, a lot. And this seems odd to me because knives are like little mosquito stingers, and my Svarga is like a bus loaded full of big people. And my point, which was just a friendly and casual observation, got all this mad hostility.

You know what, if SE made Rudra's do 500k base damage tomorrow, I would not care. Not one bit. I would still play my WAR coz she looks funny in her big helmet bashing stuff with that fat gaxe. It makes me happy to watch it. So I don't care, I only play THF under duress when my friends say "bring your THF." I will play WAR and PUP, and I don't care about Rudras nerf or if they make it even more powerful I was just saying it always seems odd to me when a dagger does more than a greataxe, and for this I got the full flame grilled trollburgers menu.

Other people were talking about endgame and you jumped in with your 17k Rudra's, you can understand the logical leap we collectively made, yes?

I understand wanting to play a job you enjoy, that's why I'm not a fan of the popular majority's (vocal minority's?) cries for a Rudra's nerf, as my best friend dearly loves playing Dancer, but nobody ever wants a Dancer. They see that the Dancer does less damage than their MNKs, their THFs, their SAMs, and that's enough reason for them not to bring a DNC. Nevermind that the DNC can pop off a Divine Waltz when healing gets really tight and prevent a wipe, or pop fan dance and tank if necessary, or, or, or. They just see that a THF parses higher and that's all that matters to them. That's why I don't want to see dagger jobs crippled just because "it's funny that a knife hits harder than a two handed axe." But hey, they're (supposedly) not touching Pyrrhic, so maybe DNC will come out on top anyways.

As a slight aside, it seems to me more that WAR needs buffs than other jobs need to be nerfed, since the fact alone that SAM can self skillchain with great ease makes it a far better job than WAR, barring the job being completely gutted. And there's not very much incentive to bring a WAR right now unless they're topping the DPS charts, because the job has very little utility outside of "bash face with axe."